Confidentiality of sources denied by Prosecution

As we reported earlier, Organised Crime unit of the Hungarian Police summoned Tamás Bodoky, editor-in-chief of Atlatszo.hu as witness, after he refused to identify a confidential source. Bodoky did not identify the source as a witness either, he claimed reporter’s privilege. Atlatszo.hu complained against the police obligation to identify a journalist’s source at  Public Prosecution Office, which is responsible for overseeing criminal investigations and ensuring that the police comply with the law.

Decision of Public Prosecution Office came 3 month later, and says that confidentiality of sources is not included in Criminal Procedure Act, so in the case of criminal procedures journalists must identify their sources, and the new media law makes exemption of testifying not possible either.  Even more surprisingly the hacker attack against Brokernet financial company was found confidential information. We think that customers have to be informed, since their personal data became available for unauthorized persons. We will appeal to the  European Court of Human Rights to have reporter’s privilege recognized in Hungary.

Proceed to the article here.